136 LETTER FROM LAOS \T fEN fIANE, APRIL 22 T ADS is stiIJ a lotus land-and one in L whIch, late1}, \Vestern hippies have discovered that they can Jive cheaply on noodle soup and lTIari- juana in a carefree, perlTIissi\ e at111os- phere that includes edS)' dCCeSS to gIrlS and gurus. Yet Lao , although officiallv neutral, is inextricably linked with the \var in \Tietna111, and this year It has e:\.perienced Its 1110St trying 11101nents since that war began. The Korth Viet- na111ese, who have in the past largely confined their 111iJitar) efforts here to aiding the local C0111111unist Pathet l./ao troops and to defending their I-Io Chi 1\1jnh Trail supply line through this country, have 1110unted two 111ajor of- fensi" es since the ) ear began, in the north and in the south. These are be- lieved to have been coÖrdinated with the T et offensive in South VietnalTI and to have been part of Hanoi's strategy of preparing to achieve as strong a lTIili- tary position as possible before any ne- gotiations. Just as the C01111TIUnists have indicated their intention of talking and fighting at the sa111e tilne in \Tietnaln, it is felt that they are likely to follow J \ 1;7 \ \ 1 jÚ I ! í ì \ I 1 1 I 1 ! I t \ ! \ Jjl S 6Jf:tJ.5ÞM the sa111e pattern in regard to Laos, 1n- aS111uch as the hostilities hert: will also presu111ably be on the agenda of any ful1-scale negotiations. The feat in this capital is that the C0111111unists will do a lot more fighting than talkIng, and consequently the ilTIlTIediate reaction to J}resident Johnson's speech announcing a partial halt in the b0111bing of North Vietnam and to Hanoi's reply e:\.press- ing winingness to hold discussions was one of g100111. This response, which is not unlike that of other nations in Southeast Asia, is bascd on the feeling that the United States is prepal ing to pull up stakes, despite President J ohn- son's assurances that we would stick to our progra111S of support and develop- 111cnt. The Lao are afraid th.:lt the Korth Vietna111ese will now feel that they have a free hand here, and that at the sa111e ti111e the United States, which has carefully been giving supposedly covert 111ilitary ass:stance to Laos, win ] ed uce its aid in th e in te rcst of th e larger goal of achieving peace. At a part)' given by the Polish I epresenta- ti, eS a few da) s after the President's annOUnCelTIent, thè North Victnal1lcse '.... 4. "Grove j)ress says my n0'""6'el1s '""6'ulgar and tasteless." representati\ es entert'd the roon1 with their hands aloft and all s111iles, like trll11TIphant bo:\.ers" and then took the Russian a111bassador In tow and 1110ved a1110ng the guests. Their satisfaction apparently reflected a conviction that the United States had finalJ} shown signs of backing down under the pressure of popuLu- opposition to the war, as Hanoi had been predicting all along. This did not quite jibe with re- ports reaching \Tientiane froln I-Ianol that North Vietna111's Pretnier Phan1 Van Dong and other Jllgh 1\{.)rth Viet- na111ese officials had strong reservatIons about the sincel ity of President J ohn- son's peace Inove, particularly since the area between the Seventeenth and the Twentieth Parallels-in which bOlnh- ing con tin ued for a week after J ohn- son's speech, until \\T.1shington Inoved the b0111bing line south to the Nine- teenth Pc:lralJel-conta]ns four and a half 111illion people, ot about twenty- seven per cent of the orth VietnalTIeSe population, and not ten per cen t, as the Pres:den t had indicated. "Thatever form future negotiations take, the final settlelnent of the long conflict ]n Vietna111 wi]] in alJ likeli- hood deternline the future of this countI), too. Though the Lao's us- picions about North Vietnaln's inten- tions 111ay be justified, there is a rosier \vay-which has now beco111e the An1erican way-of viewing the pros- pects for peace. Ironical1r, Laos, which was artificialJr carved out of the French Indo-Chinese elnpire nineteen ) ears ago and has since been shakily sus- tained through a series of international treaties that have been consistently flouted or ignored, 111ay yet e111erge c:lS a n10re vigorous national entity than either North or South Vietnam. For one thing, its populatIon is sn1all enough-there are fewer than three 111illion people in Lao , c0111pared to nIneteen lTIillion in North V]etna111 and seventeen 11Iillion in South Vietna111- so that it is no threat to any of its neighbors. For another, it has been a pawn of the n1ajur powers for so long that by now it has become a sort of in tel na t]onal responsibihty; in fact, It Inay end up as a c0111bination ward and buffer state under the joint sponsor- sh:p of the United States and the Soviet Union, both of which are eager to con tain the expansionist ai111s of China and of North VietnalTI. And, finally, because the Lao are pliable and generallv willing to c0111promise, and because they 111anifest only a relatively ]anguid variety of nationalis111, they nlay eventually be able to evolve a